U.S. Neglect May Be Just What the EU Needs

A series of notable slights by the White House have led to a sense of neglect on the continent. The president skipped the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Adding insult to injury, while Europe was busy celebrating its remarkable unification in the wake of communism's collapse, the White House was talking up the notion of America as a "Pacific power" and of the rise of a new G-2 grouping between the U.S. and China. Last month, the White House leaked word that Obama would be too busy to attend the upcoming EU-U.S. summit in Madrid. Making matters worse, it did so without even informing Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero -- who was en route to Washington and who had been counting on Obama's visit as a means to shore up his own domestic popularity -- beforehand. ...